


The Reality of Love

by TrinesRUs



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, Bad Matchmaking, F/F, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-10 10:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6979657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrinesRUs/pseuds/TrinesRUs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the 2004 Rom Com of the same title</p><p>In a last-ditch effort to save Eridan's flagging acting career, Kanaya proposes a Bachelor-esque reality show where fifteen "lucky" singles will compete to fill his flushed quadrant. Romance brews on set! Unfortunately for the production crew, it's not between Eridan and one of the competitors, but between Kanaya and fan-favorite Rose Lalonde.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Pitch

**Author's Note:**

> Why, yes, it was completely necessary for me to rewrite my favorite Rom Com as a Rosemary-with-side-Davekat fic.
> 
> I'm the only person I've heard pronounce "matesprit" like mate-ess-pree, but there's an in-story title that works better pronounced my way.

            “I don’t understand why humans are so sensitive!”

            “Neither humans nor trolls enjoy being told that you plan on murdering everyone but your friends, Eridan.”

            “Come on, Kan, what’s a little genocide between species?”

            Kanaya rubbed her temples. She never wondered why she worked with Eridan; it was an obvious slippery slope from auspisticizing between him and Vriska to ‘ _Well, now they’re both entering the entertainment industry_ …’ A more pertinent question was how she allowed herself to get pulled into being their auspistice in the first place.

            Regardless, that little lapse in judgment was how she ended up here: sitting across from Eridan at a Hollywood restaurant, trying to salvage his acting career because—as it turned out—Kanaya was the only manager willing to deal with him and he was the only client she had, meaning they would both be out of a job if this fell apart. “Among the myriad problems with that question, have you considered that killing everyone will leave no one to produce or consume your films?”

            “Sea-dwellers and all the land-dwellers I let live.” Seeing the hard look on her face, Eridan back-peddled. “It’s not like I was secretive about wantin’ to kill everybody before.”

            “Your films weren’t universally panned before.”

            “That last one was RoChris’ fault; you said so yourself.”

            “Yes, and I will continue arguing so to the studio. However, the fact remains that you are earning a reputation outside of your acting. It was easier for people to dismiss your genocidal threats when you had a moirail.” He glared down at his nutrition plateau when she said that, and she leaned across the table before pressing the point. “Now, not only do you not have a palemate to settle your more outrageous inclinations, you’ve made enough concupiscent solicitations towards your colleagues that many of them are uncomfortable working with you.”

            He stabbed at his steamed sea shellbeast with his fork. “It’s not my fault Fef split when I suggested movin’ more flushed. I just think I’d have more luck keepin’ a moirail if I filled out my other quadrants first.”

            Kanaya refrained from pointing out that it usually worked the other way around. Instead, she said, “There’s a difference between seeking matespritship or kismesissitude and alienating everyone who might work with you.”

            “It’s not like I don’t have better films lined up. What about that Action/Adventure one? The space pirates, minor political intrigue, and all that.”

            This was the part of the conversation she had been dreading. She kept her glance nuggets on her glass of yellow blood, and, if she still breathed, she would’ve held her breath. “You lost the role. Both Lupita Nyong’o and Troll George Takei were going to withdraw when they discovered you had been cast, but the director booted you to keep them.” 5…4…3…2…

            And there they were: the quivering lip and the rivers of dismay fluid. Kanaya was dreading this part of the conversation. Any time she had to break bad news to him, it always seemed to go this way. Forget what he said about filling his concupiscent quadrants first; it always felt like he was trying to pull her into a pale relationship when he got like this. She sometimes doubted she even felt ashen for him, but then guilt crammed that thought back down her word tunnel.

            “It’s just not fair, Kan! It’s not like there aren’t worse actors who keep gettin’ work for some reason. Just look at Jared Leto!”

            “I know. I’ll see what I can do to smooth things over. But you can’t expect me to make the issue vanish completely. You have to work on professional behavior.”

            “I know I can rely on you. If only everyone else was as nice to me.” Eridan prattled on for a while about how alone he was and no one listened and are you sure Vriska isn’t forgetting about him? Kanaya drained her serving of blood a little faster than she normally would.

~----------~

            Vriska swung her strut pods onto the conference table. “Alright, dweebs. I have air space to fill, and I’m only going to fill it with the shows that are going to bring in the ratings. Impress me.”

            Kanaya could practically feel Nepeta, her assistant, wiggling in her seat. It wasn’t from boredom; of the two of them, Nepeta was probably more excited to be there. They weren’t even there to pitch an idea. Mostly it was about maintaining the connections they had and keeping their ears out for anything they could have Eridan audition for. Honestly, if it weren’t for her relationship with Vriska, Kanaya would probably leave these meetings to Nepeta and turn her own attention towards resolving Eridan’s various professional mishaps.

            One of the troll occupants of the room spoke up first. “It’s called _Thresh-Hold_. Twenty lowbloods, desperate to make the most of their limited lifespans, thrown into the trials aspiring Threshecutioners faced in the years of Her Imperious Condescension: a series of obstacle courses, survival challenges, multi-opponent combat rounds, you name it. Whomever dies or has the lowest score each week is disqualified. The winner receives a place in the Intergalactic Interception Forces.”

            Kanaya exchanged a look with Nepeta. It’s not exactly the violence that was the problem. The “lowblood” part and forcing trolls into fights for entertainment, maybe, but the two of them weren’t exactly the most pacifistic trolls ever. Nor would regulations stand in the way. Cultural differences meant that troll-only programming could get away with things human-involving programs couldn’t, especially with trolls’ nocturnal-typical cycles meaning their shows could come on the humans’ “late night.” The problem laid in Her Imperious Condescension.

            Nepeta scribbled something down on a pad of paper and passed it over. Kanaya jotted down her response before handing it back without moving her eyes from the head of the table. The two of them were used to this system of chatter.

 

:33 < isn’t purrpaganda suppurrting the former qu33n illegal?

Verified Propaganda Has Been Outlawed Yes 

But Depictions Of The Condensce And Her Regime By Themselves Dont Qualify As Propaganda

:33 < i think this counts ://

:33 < it purrsents joining her conquering forces as a goal to purrsue

I Know Vriska Could Spin It Otherwise Should She Choose To

 

            Kanaya tried to send Vriska a discouraging look. Vriska caught her gander bulbs for only a moment before announcing, “I love it. What else you got?”

            “Monster Island,” another troll suggested. “We ship a bunch of human guardians to a remote location where they must battle the ferocious beasts there to the death if they want to see their wigglers again. But! What they don’t know is that these ‘beasts’ are lusii with their own wigglers to care for, and the last human standing has to decide whether to raise all of the orphaned grubs themselves or let them be culled.”

 

:33 < ://

 

            Kanaya didn’t bother writing back. She clenched her jaw and tried to motion rejection at Vriska. The complete disregard for children was making her jade blood boil. She didn’t know if any of the other trolls were as upset by it or if it was just her own motherly instincts, but she couldn’t expect the humans to accept it much more than she did. Had she been thinking rationally, it might have occurred to her that the human involvement would make it near impossible to get greenlit anyway.

            It occurred to Vriska. “Miiiiiiiight have a hard time getting that one by Standards and Practices,” she said. She paused to examine her nails before a grin curled over her cheeks. “But I love it. What else?”

            Kanaya pinched the bridge of her nose. Nepeta chewed her knuckles. A human occupant of the room cleared their throat. “For something a little less violent and for a little bit earlier in the day,” he said, “what about _Temptation Island_ for trolls? More like…Vacillation Island. We get some couples whose matespritship is troubled and stick them on a resort island with a bunch of singles—”

            “Yaaaaaaaawn. Bored. Romance is how you catch the human-troll overlap, though, so you’re not completely hopeless! Next.”

 

:33 < i think a romantic show would be purrfect! X33

:33 < trying to target trolls and humans means we could get all kinds of match-ups

:33 < maybe we could get carapacians in, too, to make it extra interesting

Its Certainly Less Protest-Worthy Than Some Of The Other Ideas Presented

But We Need A More Solid Proposal Before I Can Give My Judgment

:33 < how about a match-making show?

:33 < finding out what trolls want from their quadrants and which humans are open to quadrants, and pushing the most compatible ones together

This Is Just Reminding Me What Eridan Said About His Own Quadrants

:33 < that doesn’t s33m like an issue to me

:33 < actually, it s33ms like just what we n33d

:33 < if you enter eridan in the show, he’ll find a match and a job! :PP

I Doubt That He Would Be Amenable To Splitting His Potential Matches With Others

:33 < so make it focus more on finding him a match!

 

            Kanaya tapped her pen on the pad. That was ridiculous. They weren’t here to make a pitch to begin with, and proposing something with the specific intent of solving the Eridan predicament seemed opportunistic. But, well, the rest of the table wasn’t exactly offering up this particular idea, and she _would_ be helping Vriska, technically, and it would be a way to stay involved, rather than passively sitting in…

            And, okay, Nepeta was right; this was exactly what they needed. If Eridan was right and he just needed a concupiscent match to stabilize him, most solutions would still leave him unemployed until he found a mate, while a show would give him something until the roles started coming in again. Kanaya remembered him mentioning his flushed quadrant specifically, and it was very convenient that he seemed to be preoccupied with the quadrant that has the most overlap for troll and human audiences.

            “Will You Be My Matesprit?” she blurted. “That’s…a pitch, not a solicitation.” She waited for the room to finish chuckling before she continued, “An assortment of trolls, humans, and carapacians compete for the red affections of an eligible bachelor or bachelorette. The audience votes on which suitor they want to advance each week, and the contestant with the fewest votes is eliminated.”

            “That’s what I’m talking about! Matespritships are the sweetspot for the crossover audience, and call-in voting means sponsorship from Sprint.” In other words, the less the station had to pay, the better. Vriska eyed Kanaya with the closest thing to a neutral expression she could manage. Kanaya knew the feeling of Vriska’s telepathy and her vision eightfold, and even though she knew neither were being used, she still felt like she was being stared into. “Had a specific ‘eligible bachelor’ in mind?”

            “I would suggest Eridan Ampora.” Kanaya refrained from commenting on her certainty that Vriska already suspected as much.

            Vriska cackled. “He iiiiiiiis getting desperate, isn’t he? That’s so embarrassing, how could I _not_ greenlight this? It will be a testament to my show-running skills if I can make _Eridan Ampora_ look like an attractive matesprit.” She clapped her prongs together. “Alright, if none of you other writhing blood noodles have anything else worth saying, that’s all the time we have. Now, get out.”

            Nepeta nudged Kanaya. She gave her a grin and a double thumbs-up before collecting their pens and notepad and ducking out of the conference room. Kanaya took another moment to gather her thoughts and wonder how Eridan was going to react to being volunteered for a Vriska production.


	2. Now Auditioning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I make very little reference to the Strilonde twins' physical features because I want to leave this open to readers' race headcanons ~~but I personally headcanon Brazilian/Japanese Strilondes if that's going to affect anyone's reading experience~~.

            “I can’t believe this! Vriska wants to put my search for a matesprit on live television as a competition?” Eridan scowled. He paced the length of his penthouse apartment while Kanaya tried not to accidentally rip apart the couch cushion she was seated on. “That’s entirely too helpful for her. Unless she’s settin’ me up to fail. You don’t think she’s waxin’ black for me, do you?”

            Oh no. That last question sounded entirely too hopeful. “No, Eridan. And I think you two are better off staying hatefriendly. Unless you’re saying you want to terminate our auspisticism immediately.” Oops. Now, it was Kanaya’s turn to sound too hopeful.

            Not that Eridan noticed. “No! If anything, this means I need you more than ever. If she’s stirrin’ up trouble with me, we need you keepin’ us from getting too caliginous behind the scenes.” He rubbed his chin. “This could be good, though. This show. I’m really going to get a matesprit?”

            “People are clamoring for the opportunity,” Kanaya assured him. “You’ll have time with fifteen potential mates who are all there for you. The audience will give their input, but you will be able to choose the one in the end.”

            “When do I get to meet the lucky lovers?”

~----------~

            The next time Kanaya found herself in Eridan’s apartment, it was to go over the audition tapes with him—although calling them “tapes” was more of a hold-over from when polyester picture ribbons were still in common use. Most auditionees sent recorded discs, though a few sent in portable data sticks instead. It was up to them to start narrowing the field of candidates.

            Eridan popped a randomly-selected disc into his computer. Kanaya noticed the surprising quality of the video: decent lighting, perfect framing, no grain, and clear audio. Whomever filmed it knew what they were doing. A violet-blooded troll sat primly on an ornate, high-backed king chair. Her eyes were half-lidded, and her lips had the touch of a smirk.

            “Hello, Ampora. My name is Olygga Enidit, and you won’t find a better match for you than me. We are two trolls of worthy blood, and our goals are compatible. You want to destroy the world and subjugate the survivors. I want the same.” The violet blood calling herself Olygga lifted her chin. “The lesser bloods are getting too cocky. The humans think they own the planet. And don’t get me started on the other race of red-blooded freaks. Someone needs to put them back in their places, under the rightful strictures of the hemospectrum. You and I working alone can only be at war. But united, as matesprit, we can bring each other great joy and bring this world to its knees.”

            Kanaya saw the look on Eridan’s face and felt an immediate pinch of dread. “Eridan, no.”

            “But we have so much in common!”

            “It might not even work out as well as you think. Ignoring what a horrible idea unprovoked murder is in the first place, consider the complications that could arise. What if she wants to destroy the very trolls you want to spare? What if the two of you can’t agree on what portion of the population you wish to kill? On killing methods?”

            Eridan crossed his arms and sank into the couch. “Fine. But if I spurn the one with genocidal aims on live TV, then wouldn’t everyone see it as me turnin’ my back on my violent ways? It could be great for PR.”

            “You can’t predict the consequences of rebuffing her. The audience could interpret it as arrogance, wanting the power to destroy the world entirely in your own prongs. Or, worse, your rejection could motivate her to destroy everyone sooner, starting with you.” Kanaya sighed and selected the next disc. “It’s good to see you taking your reputation into consideration, however.”

            A tiny carapacian appeared on screen after a few seconds’ stretch of darkness. Neither of them could understand a word he said, but he seemed very enthusiastic about chalk and pumpkins. And cans. Especially cans of TaB. At some point, he did wave around a few DVDs with Eridan on the cover, which was enough to convince them that the video was not sent by mistake.

            Weirder videos were in the set, however. They zipped from one human suitor playing “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” on kazoo to a purple-blood (whom might have had too much of a soporific) contemplating his own hand to someone who was convinced that the absolute pinnacle of seduction was imitating a Klingon mating cry. For some, it was not necessarily their behavior or speech that struck them as odd, just some quirk of their character, like one highblood who sweated more than seemed natural.

            The worst entry, however, wasn’t any of the weirdos, because at the end of the day, most of them were just slightly odd beings who either piqued Eridan’s interest or they didn’t, and those that didn’t had no bearing on their lives beyond the few minutes of video the two of them watched. The worst was actually a human with a terribly uncanny resemblance to Feferi. Eridan burst into tears at the sight of her. Kanaya allowed him a few minutes to sob, but then she ripped open the envelope for the next disc.

            The first shot was of a big, red iris right in the camera. When the figure in front of the camera was certain it was steady, he stepped back to reveal himself as a short troll with nubby horns. “Attention Eridan Ampora,” he began, and had either of them dozed off, they would have been awake in an instant. The man was _loud_. “My name is Karkat Vantas, and before you jump to any conclusions, I am not making this video for myself. I am actually…” Here, he stepped even further back to reveal a human in a pair of shades, whom he quickly hugged. “Already satisfied in that quadrant.”

            Kanaya suspected there was a little more to the story than that. Human-troll romantic relationships weren’t exactly uncommon—less common than troll-troll and human-human, but still reasonably ordinary. Trolls participating in the human practice of marriage was considerably rarer, yet the glint of a gold band on Karkat’s finger was unmistakable.

            “This is my matesprit, Dave.” There was a little hesitance in the way he said, “matesprit,” like he wasn’t used to it, but Karkat and Dave looked so at ease with their arms around each other that Kanaya couldn’t fathom why. “We are actually making this video for his human sibling, Rose, whom has not been as successful in her flushed quadrant as we have and is fortunate enough that filling her quadrants is not as essential to human life as it is to trolls’. However, it’s also startling considering she is one of the few humans with a modicum of respect for troll culture and romantic configurations.”

            “Between me and my sister, I thought for sure that she would be the first one to bag a troll girlfriend or boyfriend,” said Dave. “Like, she would just come home from the grocery store one day; ‘Dave, help me unload the van.’ ‘Sure thing, sis. You already got the cabbages, so let me grab this. Damn, this bag is heavy. What’s even in here?’ And I’d look in and, boom, there they’d be: her new troll bae.”

            “What my matesprit is trying to say is that if you have any hope in falling in love with humankind, it’s with Rose, and we can think of no one more deserving of romantic fulfillment than her.”

            “Mostly because we’ve already got all the _fulfilling_ we need.” It was hard to tell behind the shades, but Kanaya got the distinct impression that Dave was wagging his eyebrows. Karkat’s blush did nothing to deter that assumption.

            The video jumped to a busy city street, one that Kanaya recognized, after a hazy moment of déjà vu, as being somewhere in New York. It had been an eternity since she’d lived there. Yet just the sight of the storefronts brought back the scent of exhaust and hoofbeast skewers smothered in grubsauce and, if someone stood too close to the grate in summer, the hot puff of sewage, or the cinnamon-spiked aroma of roasted chestnuts in the winter. The usual ruckus of the city was silent, however.

            Karkat or Dave, whichever one filmed this part, had a wobbly camera hand. They zoomed in on one store in particular, Fruity Rumpus Hardback Factory, as Karkat’s narration announced, “This is where Rose works. She owns the store, but it was their mother’s before hers. She sells obscure tomes from every culture. My personal favorite is _In which a Young Adult Troll Lies about Her Experience with the Outdoors in Order to Impress Her Matesprit, Not Knowing that the Howlfiend Terrorizing Their Campground is Actually Her Matesprit, Who has been Cursed_ —”

            “Mostly, she sells Horror and Fantasy,” Dave cut in. “Wizards and all that shit. It’s pretty weird, but she stands by the quality. Stands by their quality like she’s Tammy Wynette and they’re her man. Wait, shit.”

            Another cut found them in a diner. The camera was slightly steadier this time, and it tracked an apron-clad Karkat maneuvering around the tables to deliver a stack of pancakes to a woman sitting at the front window. Kanaya couldn’t help but notice the way the light bouncing off her hair made her glow. It struck her with the impression that she’d seen another rainbow drinker, until she remembered that human rainbow drinkers hated the sun.

            Kanaya unconsciously perked up when everyone else in the video turned to that table. She couldn’t hear what Karkat said to the woman, but the woman got a sly look on her face and made some short remark back. The rest of the patrons laughed silently, but their shoulders shook in a manner that suggested it was much more uproarious in person.

            “This perspicacious piece of pantopragmatics is Rose,” said Karkat’s voiceover. “She thinks she knows what everyone is thinking better than they do, but it entertains the customers, so it’s not so bad having her at our diner all the time. Don’t tell her I said this, but her wit and charm is probably half of what keeps this place afloat.”

            “And here, I thought it was the family atmosphere,” Dave said. The video cut back to their original location just in time to show Karkat elbowing his husband in the ribs. Dave cracked a smile. “The point is, we want my sister to be happy. She’s always wanted to explore quadrants, and if opportunities were steaks, this one would be prime rib.”

            Karkat buried his face in his palms. “‘Prime opportunity’ is already a term. You could just say that.”

            And that was about where the video cut off. Kanaya ejected it from the computer and examined the surface. It was a pretty simple DVD; its only distinguishing feature was ROSE LALONDE scrawled on the surface. It felt more significant than the others all the same.

            “I need her.”

            “Hm?”

            “I need her on the show,” Eridan said. “She’s clever. She likes wizards…She’s not as high class as some of the others who auditioned, and that’s a disappointment, but she has a regality to her…And at least she owns a business, so that means she knows how to take charge. We at least gotta bring her in for an interview.”

            Kanaya hesitated. They only knew what Karkat and Dave said about Rose. They saw very little of the woman herself. Could they really judge her disposition on so little? People could always lie. Then again, any number of the other entrants could have been deceiving them, yet she felt no resistance to judging them at face value. Furthermore, putting Rose on their acceptance list wouldn’t substitute for the studio’s own background checks or other processing. There were any number of opportunities for her to be rejected if she proved less than what the audition tape promised.

            The fact that she was already so eager to step between Eridan and this particular match disturbed her. She only had a passing curiosity about the human herself. Kanaya wondered if Rose was really as clever as she was presented, and if she was, she would certainly be good conversation. If anything, that was more of a reason to introduce her to Eridan, because then she would potentially have a friend outside of the entertainment industry.

            “Adding her to the approved stack,” she finally replied. She set Rose’s DVD on the five others that had been acceptable thus far. The reject stack was much more mountainous in comparison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This didn't get quite as far as I wanted to, but that's okay. I got to write my grocery store joke, and that's all I really needed.


End file.
